Art of Supply

"TQL and C.H. Robinson set the price and illegal carriers accept these bargain-basement bids often with no questions asked." - Stevens Trucking Co., et al. v. C.H. Robinson Company, Inc., d/b/a C.H. Robinson Worldwide, et al., Case No. 2:26-cv-00869, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Marshall Division)
That's the accusation at the center of a federal racketeering lawsuit six family-owned trucking companies filed in September against two of the largest freight brokers in the country. According to the lawsuit, some TQL loads were posted at $1.60 a mile, at a time when ATRI puts the average cost to run a truck at $2.33 a mile. The carriers say the price itself is the proof. The brokers say the market sets the price, and the plaintiffs simply lost to a lower bidder.
In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner covers:
 - What the carriers are accusing C.H. Robinson and TQL of, and why they reached for a law built to fight the mob
 - How the brokers are firing back, from "no freight broker sets rates" to a push to move the case to Ohio
 - Why a 2006 Supreme Court case about unpaid sales tax may decide whether this lawsuit survives at all
 
Links:
The $604 Million Freight Broker Liability Verdict: https://artofprocurement.com/blog/supply-the-604-million-freight-broker-liability-verdict 
Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/ 
Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193 
Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com 
Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

On Sunday, September 27, the most-tracked flight in the world wasn't carrying a single traditional passenger.
FedEx flight FX9756 left Chengdu, China, with two giant pandas aboard, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, bound for a 10-year stay at Zoo Atlanta. The pair was billed as an envoy of friendship between China and the U.S., but behind the photo op was a door-to-door logistics operation that started months before takeoff: a federal permit, a month of crate training, a dedicated Boeing 777 freighter, a police escort, and a team of people on both sides of the Pacific.
In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner cover:
- The federal paper trail required before two bears listed as endangered under U.S. law could legally make the trip
 - How you move live cargo by truck, plane and truck again without stressing it out
- The people who traveled with the pandas, and the ones who got to Atlanta first
 
Links:
Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/ 
Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193 
Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com 
Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"When you call it a pilot, we realized that it basically puts a label on it so that it's not on the critical path. It's not actually real work." - Çetin Meriçli, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder, Atlas Robotics
Warehouses are not easy places to work - for people or for robots. Pallet labels end up on the wrong corner. Someone leaves an empty pallet in the middle of the floor. The plan changes 30 seconds after it's made. In a warehouse, exception is the rule, and that's why most warehouses are still unautomated despite decades of progress in robotics.
In this episode, I speak with Çetin Meriçli, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Atlas Robotics, about what physical AI changes, and why the way companies test warehouse robots may be setting them up to fail before they start.
LIsten in to hear Çetin and Kelly Barner discuss,
- Why physical AI is more than a new name for traditional automation
- The ordinary warehouse moments that people handle without thinking, and that robots find hardest
- Why Atlas runs "probation" deployments instead of pilots, and how success is defined before day one
Links:
Çetin Meriçli on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cetinmericli/ 
Atlas Robotics: https://www.atlas-robotics.com/ 
Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/ 
Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193 
Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com 
Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"Decisions regarding specific authorizations will not be made publicly available." — U.S. Commerce Department, Connected Vehicle Rule
Two cars come off the same assembly line in South Carolina. They have the same software stack, according to the company that builds one of them. Starting with model year 2027, the Volvo EX90 can keep being sold in the United States. The Polestar 3 can't.
Both companies are owned by China's Geely. Commerce won't say why one passed and one failed, and under its own rule, it doesn't have to.
In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner covers:
- Why the auto supply chain's dependence on China is so hard to unwind, from the hardware all the way down to the source code
- How two companies under the same Chinese parent got opposite answers from Washington
- Why Ford's China-built Lincoln Nautilus suddenly didn't need permission, and what Congress wants to do next
Links:
Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/ 
Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193 
Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com 
Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"Am I just making worse decisions way more quickly than I ever would before, and they're compounding and driving me down the wrong path?" – Russell Halper, Founder & Managing Director, Insight Kitchen
Supply chain should be AI's ideal proving ground. It has plenty of data, plenty of decisions, and plenty of problems no one has solved. So why did a recent AI conference with 11,000 attendees have only three talks about supply chain?
In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly talks with Russell Halper, Founder & Managing Director of Insight Kitchen, about the gap between AI's highlight reel and what it takes to get results inside a physical network. Russell has spent his career at the intersection of data science and supply chain. 
Listen to this episode to hear:
- Why a forecast has to beat a human planner, while an agent only has to come close
- What makes supply chain harder for AI than writing code or email
- How to build an AI roadmap around mile markers rather than a destination
Links:
Russell Halper on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russellhalper/ 
Insight Kitchen: https://insightkitchen.ai/ 
Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/ 
Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193 
Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com 
Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe